He’s the big man of the Big East and now Villanova center Michael Bradley gets to play the big game against Boston College, a place that was supposed to be his college home, before he eventually made his Final Four stop to his new Kentucky home, where he was supposed to play for Rick Pitino.

It’s all so confusing, but when you are the center of basketball attention, life can be that way. Bradley again showed yesterday what all the fuss was about as he powered Villanova to an easy 82-71 win over West Virginia in the opening round of the Big East Tournament at the Garden. Bradley led all scorers with 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting and pulled down nine rebounds against the Mountaineers, who started the game in a 14-3 hole.

After West Virginia climbed its way back early in the second half, trailing by only three, 41-38, it was buried by an 11-0 run with Bradley scoring seven of those points.

Villanova shot 53 percent from the field as four players scored in double figures. Now the Wildcats can only hope that the third time is a charm as they try to beat Boston College for the first time this season after losing by a combined 25 points the first two times around.

To beat BC, Villanova will have to cut down on turnovers, something it accomplished yesterday, and get the ball inside to the 6-10, 245-pound Bradley, who hails from Worcester, Mass. He is looking forward to this meeting on many fronts. Bradley’s first choice was to go to BC, but backed out after two other top recruits were not accepted by the administration even though they were qualified under NCAA standards. All that forced Jim O’Brien to jump to Ohio State and Bradley wound up being wooed to Kentucky in 1997 by Pitino, who would end up fleeing to the Celtics. Bradley finally made his way to Villanova last season, watching from the bench as a transfer.

Some of his teammates chose to use the word revenge regarding today’s game, but Bradley just sees it as “a great battle.”

Added the soft-spoken Bradley, who averaged 21.9 points and 10.1 rebounds during the regular season causing NBA scouts to drool, “[Villanova’s] pressure caused us so many problems. They have a lot of guys who go after it, they can knock down the three, they deserve the No. 1 seed.”

Villanova coach Steve Lappas is one of those coaches who was born to be in this tournament. His mindset, his attitude, his choice of words are what college basketball is all about. He knows the task at hand will be difficult against ball-hawking BC and guard Troy Bell, who was second in the conference in steals.

“Everybody, for some reason is going out and saying [the tournament] is balanced,” Lappas said in his rapid-fire way, “but here you have a team that is in the Top 10, considered one of the best teams in the country, so, to me, they’re favored to win this thing, they deserve to be favored, they were 13-3 in the league. That’s how I look at it. [Boston College’s] better. They’re No. 9 in the nation and we’re barely on the radar screen.”

Lappas’ players will have to do the same thing today that they did yesterday. Keep control of the ball and throw it inside to Bradley. “When we don’t turn the ball over we’re a pretty good offensive team,” Lappas said. “And when you have a player who is shooting 70 percent from the field, you’ve got to throw him the ball. And as I explained to them, when you throw [Bradley] the ball, good things happen for everybody else, even if he doesn’t score. He draws so much attention that it just opens up the court for everybody else.”